All day, Wednesday 28 October 2015 - Friday 30 October 2015

Presenters

• Professor Adam Hedgecoe, Director of CESAGENE (The Centre for Ethical and Social Aspects of Genomics and Epigenetics)
• Further presenters to be confirmed

Course description

This short course is the first in series of training events, funded by the ESRC, offering advanced methods raining relevant to Science and Technology Studies. In contrast to debates around different schools of thought (e.g. Sociology of Scientific Knowledge or Actor Network Theory), STS training tends to pay less attention to methodological issues. This course aims to remedy this, focusing on three different STS-specific methods: Laboratory studies, Interviews with scientists and Imitation Games. This first course focuses on Laboratory studies, one of the first distinct points where the sociology of science began to develop its own methodological approaches, leading to such classic studies as Laboratory Life (Latour and Woolgar) or Changing Order (Collins).

Drawing on the extensive experience in ethnographic and qualitative methods at the Cardiff School of Social Science, this course will cover a theoretical component, contrasting the varying methodological positions underpinning classic laboratory studies (such as ‘naïve observation’ and ‘informed observation’) as well as a practical element, spending time carrying out observations in a lab. A key aspect of the course will be to encourage students to develop ideas about those sites in which they plan to carry out their research.

This event will be held in Cardiff (location TBC).

Cost

The course is free of charge and travel bursaries are available for non-Wales PhD students.  For information regarding bursaries please contact walesdtc@cardiff.ac.uk.

The workshop is aimed at PhD social science students and more experienced researchers.  To apply for a space please use the form below.

Deadline for bookings

21 October 2015

Bookings